Will Pfeifer: Dread builds rapidly in impressive thriller

Friday

The season for scary movies is over, but so few good horror movies get made these days that I felt it was my duty as a film critic to alert you to “The Strangers.”

The season for scary movies is over, but so few good horror movies get made these days that I felt it was my duty as a film critic to alert you to “The Strangers.”

Rent “The Strangers.” Turn off your lights, pop in the DVD and get ready to be scared. Oh, and don’t check beforehand if your doors are locked. To be honest, they probably are, but that nagging doubt will just add to the experience of watching this movie.

Without redefining the genre, breaking ground in gore or (thankfully) pushing the limits of “torture porn,” “The Strangers” manages to be that rarest of all movies: One that scares the heck out of you without showing you much at all. It’s all in your head — at least for the opening third or so — and under the right circumstances, that’s a very frightening place to be.

The setup is simple, with just enough touches to make the characters interesting. The movie opens with Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) arriving at a vacation home late one night after a wedding. It’s quickly established that James asked Kristen to marry him, she failed to say "yes," and now there’s a rich brew of tension and regret boiling between them. To make things worse, James anticipated a “yes” and filled the house with romantic touches — candles, champagne, rose petals, the works. Coming back to those reminders of what might have been is a grim experience for the likable couple, but don’t worry: Things are going to get worse. Much, much worse.

The strangest thing about “The Strangers” is that it’s most terrifying before anything happens. My wife, who has seen more than a few horror movies, said more than once during the opening third, “I don’t think I can watch this” — and I know just what she meant. For me, a great horror film doesn’t deliver shocks, it delivers dread. It makes you so worried about what’s coming that you can barely bear to watch — but you definitely can’t bear to not watch. “The Strangers” does that better than any movie I can think of since the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

When something does happen in “The Strangers” — and it’s awful — it almost comes as a relief. Sure it’s bad, but it’s there on the screen, and you can deal with it.

I’ve been deliberately vague about what happens, or why it happens, or who it happens to. That’s because “The Strangers” manages a delicate balancing act of (a) tormenting you by making you wait for the horror, then (b) tormenting you again by showing you the horror. It’s a mark of the movie’s quality that part (a) is even more unnerving than part (b). I credit writer/director Bryan Bertino and his crew for taking a simple but effective premise and keeping it simple, and thus effective.

I also credit whoever made those masks the intruders wear. They alone crank up the disturbing factor a few thousand notches.

Contact Will Pfeifer at wpfeifer@rrstar.com or 815-987-1244. Read his Movie Man blog at blogs.e-rockford.com/movieman/.